China: The Superpower of Mr. Xi by Roderick MacFarquhar | The New York Review of Books September 25, 2015

In the almost one-hundred-year existence of the Chinese Communist Party, its current general secretary, Xi Jinping, is only the second leader clearly chosen by his peers. The first was Mao Zedong. Both men beat out the competition, and thus secured a legitimacy their predecessors lacked. Why was Xi chosen?